I'm retired except for being an occasional part-time substitute teacher at Raton High School, and the Instruments Coordinator for the Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers (ALPO). My wife Pat is also a "sub", and an officer in the United Methodist Women. We are both active in the United Methodist Church. She needed Internet access for her activities, and initiated purchase of this account with PeoplePC - thus her name is in this site's URL. We live in Raton, New Mexico, USA. This small city is about 10 miles south of the Colorado/NM border, and on the eastern side of NM. All my observations since May 1997 were made in my backyard, or a observatory, shed, or room in the house (for some radio work). Our house is an old red brick Victorian 2-story 4-bedroom style built in 1898. The sky is very dark, and Raton sits in a shallow bowl of distant (and nearby) mountains; therefore the radio sky has little interference too. My latitude is +36.91 deg., longitude -104.44 deg., and altitude 2004 meters.

My love of science began with a fascination of chemistry, which morphed into one for rockets, which developed into one for astronomy; and that led me into photography. My first real job was at the El Paso Public Library in the early 60's where I got to read almost every copy of Scientific American, Aviation Week, and Missiles & Rockets (now defunct). I soon transfered from the periodical department to the reference department to the U.S. government documents department. But working part-time and attending college (Texas Western - now UTEP El Paso) part-time got me drafted into the Army. Two years later I opted out and landed my second real job as a Photographic Technician at New Mexico State University Observatory in Las Cruces - working for Dr. Clyde W. Tombaugh's wonderful team of astronomers. I worked in the darkroom and substituted occasionally for the observers who worked at the 12-inch Fecker telescope on A mountain. In my spare time I assisted Mr. Dennis Milon (the ALPO Comets Coordinator), and got to know Mr. Walter Haas (their Director) who worked a few buildings away. The observatory eventually purchased a 24-inch Boller & Chivens Cassegrain, and I got to help assemble the dome. I would also steal away from my office duties to make a part or two on their Southbend lathe. I was caught in the lathe room on more than one occasion, but I made up for it by working faster in the darkroom.

Four years later I transferred to the Lunar & Planetary Laboratory in Tucson (Arizona) working for astronomers headed by Dr. Gerard P. Kuiper. They needed someone to make composites and help at the 61-inch Catalina telescope as an observing assistant (my wife was also from Tucson and wanted to move). My job title was Research Assistant, but as at NMSU; I did almost anything and everything. Again, I started building this and that and before I knew it I had built an infrared image-tube camera for photographing Jupiter at methane wavelengths (8890 Angstroms); and I helped build a couple of image-intensifier cameras with help from Mr. Larry Dunkelman of Goddard Space Flight Center. I eventually began measuring the latitudes and longitudes of spots, belts, and zones on Jupiter - very similar to the effort started many years earlier at NMSU. But LPL used color film, and this difference eventually led to important discoveries (by me) regarding the color of Jovian features and their 5-micron temperatures.

Unfortunately, after about 8 years our NASA budget got so tight that I got laid off in a RIF (reduction in force). However, this got me looking for a better job; and thanks to a wide network of friends I found an even better one. Mr. Jack Eastman gave my resume to Martin-Marietta Aerospace (now Lockheed-Martin), and I was hired at double my previous LPL salary as a Software Engineer. (All that Jupiter measurement and learning Fortran 4 really paid off). Again, I did this and that programming jobs - usually in Fortran - but I got exposed to other languages including machine languages for controlling robotic items. I eventually wound-up in the computer simulation arena and worked on many small simulations before getting a big assignment - the Peacekeeper missile simulation program (determining how and when to deploy and maintain 100 to 50 missiles to keep them all on active status). From this I graduated to the Air Defense Initiative simulation, and then to another very big assignment - the Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars) computer simulation.

I could write a book about this and maybe some day I will - Star Wars is in the headlines again. The title "The Truth Behind Star Wars - the Early Years" sounds good, but for now, go to the website for Steven M. Woodcock (www.gameai.com/steve.html) and read what he did on this project (he is the father of SWARM). He, I, and others worked on the SWARM simulation at Falcon Air Force Base (now Schriever AFB). Schriever AFB is about 15 miles east of Peterson AFB in Colorado Springs in the middle of nowhere with a chain-link fence around it (like the bio lab in the movie "Andromeda Strain").

Now that you know the things I've done to earn money, the list below outlines things I enjoy reading about, building, or doing as hobbies (about 90% were built). If you see something here that you are interested in building or talking about, send me an email or USPS letter. Any software required for this stuff was written by me in GW BASIC, and I will freely share any of hundreds of programs - I can mail a 1.44 Mb disk for 1 first-class stamp.

But first consider RESOURCES for that project or activity - these can be hardware, software, or ideas. If you cannot find exactly what you need, you can usually find something close enough that it can be modified into what you need. My favorite CHEAP sources are thrift stores, junk yards, surplus stores. Somewhat more expensive sources are hardware stores, big-box stores, hobby and electronic suppliers, and so on. These can be found in the yellow pages, newspapers, and on the Internet. Ive been to hundreds of thrift stores, junk yards, and suplus stores; and The Black Hole in Los Alamos (New Mexico) is the absolute best !!!

My favorite single topic is the collection and measurement of light and energy; and (if possible) imagery at these wavelengths. This very broad area of interest includes sensors, antennas, photometers, cameras, and telescopes.

Here is a list of items of specific interest to me, or that I have built: IR & visible light photometers, Wilson cloud chambers, Geiger/scintillation counters, image-motion compensators, computer analysis/graphics/interfacing, optical testing, binocular collimation, grinding telescope mirrors, making telescopes, building telescope mounts and drives, satellite tracking and photography, building observatories, building roll/sheet film cameras, camera obscuras, building Schmidt/astrographic/meteor/ planetary cameras, darkroom techniques, hypersensitizing film, compositing, spectroscopes, spectrographs, radiometeor systems, radiotelescopes, CCD techniques/observations, low-light video; and image intensifiers.

If I have listed anything that interests you, then write or email me and we'll discuss it. I don't know it all and there are many other things that interest me too; and I learn by reading, doing, and meeting others.